The 2015 Coaches Conference was held in Louisville Kentucky, January 7th through the 10th.  ETSU was represented well in the speaker line-up. Dr. Brad DeWeese spoke on the Development of Phase Potentiation for Strength and Power, Dr. Mike Stone followed the next day by discussing Power Development.  Meg Stone gave an insightful presentation on the need for coaches’ education at the collegiate level.  All three presentations were well received.

It was encouraging to see so many young strength and conditioning coaches attend this year’s conference and so many good talks on the training process. Our contact, Ethan Owens, from Catapult conducted a seminar on the utilization of the Catapult system for training and monitoring athletes. We are very grateful for our collaboration with Catapult.

The RSCC Reception on Wednesday evening included seven new inductees into the Emeritus status of the RSCC. Matt Krause from the New York Yankees was the keynote speaker at the reception and shared about how Major League Baseball no longer hires any strength coach without being NSCA certified.

Several NFL coaches attended the conference. Tom Myslinski form the Jacksonville Jaguars and Jerry Palmieri from the New York Giants both expressed concerns regarding the hiring practice of strength and conditioning coaches with no certification at collegiate level. This may well be a concern that becomes a major issue in the near future.

Overall the 2015 Coaches Conference was well attended and promoted the work done at ETSU in a very favorable light.    

Two CESSCE staff, Dr. Brian Johnston and Dr. Kimi Sato, along with former sport physiology and performance graduate, Dr. Guy Hornsby are in Taiwan to provide educational service for baseball and softball coaches at National Taiwan University of Sport (臺灣體育運動大學) in Taichung, Taiwan.

They were invited to speak at the 2015 Baseball Coaching Science Conference from January 9-11 (https://sites.google.com/a/integrationsports.com/2015bcsc/home).  The purpose of the conference was to provide information on training strategies and planning, injury mechanism/prevention, nutrition, and biomechanics of throwing and hitting for baseball.  Dr. Sato, an assistant professor for the Department of Exercise & Sport Science and CESSCE faculty said, “It is a great opportunity for baseball and softball coaches in Taiwan to understand many components that go into the science side of baseball”.  Several professional and amateur baseball players have been training at Integration Sport Science Academy (ISSA) (http://www.iss-academy.com/) where former ETSU graduates and interns from the CESSCE are currently employed at the academy (Dr. Keith Leiting, Shawn French, Isaiah McBride, and Chia-Yi (Johnny) Lin). 

Last summer, CESSCE staff including Dr. Mike Stone, Meg Stone, Dr. Mike Ramsey and Dr. Sato along with former CESSCE students (Dr. Chris Bailey (LaGrange College, GA), Dr. Chieh-Ying (Mark) Chiang (National Taiwan Sports University), and Howard Gray (Texas A&M)) visited Taiwan for the Sport and Coaching Science Conference.  This year, the focus of the Coaching Science Conference is specifically on baseball as a continuation of the educational service to coaches and athletes in Taiwan.  “Dr. Stone and Meg Stone have built such a strong connection between our program and Mr. Jeff Hsu, CEO of Integration Sports (www.integrationsports.com) to offer an opportunity of learning environment for Taiwanese coaches and students” Dr. Sato, said. “This also provides an opportunity for our students and staff to make an impact to sport science and coach education in Taiwan.”